Avocado

Avocados.

We have been getting more and more from this tree.
It is Verde. I only brought three named cultivars.

The named cultivars will give us known fruit, an extended season and fruit quickly. The seedlings will give us more variety in time and are much cheaper.

Flood

Wow!!! The water came down and down and down.
Over the last few days I have seen water where I have never seen water before. It was surreal. We paddled our canoes five kilometers down the road. Over fences past sheds and houses all full of floating furniture, tools and the remnants of peoples lives. In some places it was over 3 meters deep.  Neighbors said it took 2 hours for the estimated 1 million cubic meters of water to overtop the stopbanks.
When the water level dropped everything was coated in a layer of silt. We have spent the last week washing, waterblasting and filling skip bins of ruined belongings.

So grateful for clean water, laughter, friends, music, good food and a lifestyle where we can be there for others when needed.

People flow

The bus flat is a people place but also a private place.

Some people come for a short stay and others stay a while. We have been designing this space for a while and playing around with these public/private tensions.

This new woven bamboo fence guides people to park away from the people areas and moves them into a main entrance area.

We are designing the space by gradually adding levels of permanence so we can change things as we feel our way into the space.

Living design, gradual stiffening.

Brick yard

An impromptu design session at the brickyard.

I have been using pallets, hay bales and bamboo to mock up a corner cob seat with drying shelves and a mini rocket stove/kai table.

They were making pots and chatting. I was watching they way they moved in the space and then getting some great feedback.

Shelves moved higher, seat backs turned into a leaning wall and cob seats became wooden storage boxes for clay tools, tea making basics and kindling.

 I will not start this project until spring but it is great to be able to consider the design and see it being used before it becomes final.

Rendered beeswax

The house still smells of honey.
This is the wax harvest for the year.

We have enough hand cream and candles so this will probably be turned into furniture polish, floor wax and I would like to make a set of natural crayons with the colored clay and earthen pigments I have been collecting.